Global Soft Power Summit 2025

John Kerry served as the United States’ 68th Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017. As America’s top diplomat, he guided the Department’s strategy on nuclear non-proliferation, combating radical extremism, and the threat of climate change. His tenure was marked by the successful negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement. On January 20, 2021, he was sworn in as our nation’s inaugural Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and the first-ever Principal to sit on the National Security Council entirely dedicated to climate change. President Biden announced Kerry would have a seat at every table around the world as he combats the climate crisis to meet the existential threat that we face. 

From 1985 to 2013, he served as a U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts, and was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2009 to 2013. Secretary Kerry served in the U.S. Navy, completing two combat tours of duty in Vietnam for which he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V, and three Purple Hearts. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his law degree from Boston College Law School. 

Secretary Kerry is the best-selling author of A Call to Service, This Moment on Earth with his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, and his 2018 memoir, Every Day Is Extra, which The New York Times described as “a bittersweet reminder of what the country once demanded of its leaders.” 

Secretary Kerry was the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States in 2004. On May 3rd 2024, Secretary Kerry was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his lifelong commitment to public service. 

Former Prime Minister & Head of Government of Finland (2019-2023) 

Sanna Marin is the Former Prime Minister of Finland (2019-2023) and the leader of the Finnish Social Democratic Party. Appointed at the age of 34, Marin served as the youngest Prime Minister of the world when taking office in 2019. In 2015, Marin was elected to Parliament on her first run, where she was a member of the Grand Committee, Legal Affairs Committee, and Environment Committee. She has also served as Chair of the Social Democratic Party since 2020. Marin’s government has been considered one of the most successful in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in terms of lost lives and economical damage caused by the pandemic. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Marin led her country through the most swift NATO accession process in the whole history of the alliance. Marin now specializes in topics of geopolitics, strategic autonomy, climate change, and female leadership. 

Marin has been actively engaged in politics since 2006. “Being involved and making a difference represent civil rights for me. Changing things takes commitment. The welfare state or the ground rules for working life should not be taken for granted; they are the result of hard work and determined efforts.” Environmental values are also close to Sanna Marin’s heart: “Climate change and loss of biodiversity are some of the biggest problems of our times. Addressing them takes strong political will and determination.” 

Marin made history as the longest-serving woman prime minister of Finland, leading a parliamentary coalition entirely headed by women and a majority-women cabinet. She has spoken at Davos AM23, the Lowy Institute, the Munich Security Conference, and for New York University’s 2023 Commencement, among others. In addition to the historical challenges during her leadership, Marin’s government passed many progressive reforms in Finland, including world's most ambitious climate laws aiming for carbon neutrality by 2035, family leave reform sharing paid leave with both parents equally as well as major reforms improving healthcare, education and human rights. 

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. Parag's newest book is The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019). He is author of a trilogy of books on the future of world order that have been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.”  

Parag has been an adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 program. He’s been a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore; a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation; a senior geopolitical adviser to United States Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; a Global Governance Fellow at the Brookings Institution; worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; and a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. 

A widely cited global intellectual, Dr. Khanna provides regular commentaries and articles for all the major international media outlets. He is currently a CNN Global Contributor. His 2008 cover story for the New York Times Magazine titled “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony,” is one of the most globally debated and influential essays since the end of the Cold War. He is a contributing editor to WorldPost and serves on the editorial board of Global Policy and as a consultant to the National Geographic series Origins. 

He also appears frequently in media around the world such as CNN, BBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera and other broadcasters. In 2010 he became the first video-blogger for ForeignPolicy.com and from 2010-12 co-authored the Hybrid Reality blog on BigThink. From 2008-9, Parag was the host of “InnerView” on MTV. He spoke at TED Global in 2009, TED in 2016, a guest host of TED Global 2012, and lead speaker at TEDxGateway in 2018. His TED talks have been viewed several million times. 

Parag lectures frequently at international conferences and gives tailored briefings to government leaders and corporate executives on global trends and scenarios, systemic risks and technological disruptions, and market entry strategies and economic master planning. He has provided expertise to many governments including the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Japan, China, India, Australia, South Korea, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia, Bhutan, and numerous others. In 2016 he served on the Singapore government's Committee on the Future Economy. He is currently a senior advisor to Globality and serves on the advisory boards of GeoQuant, Graticule Asset Management Asia (GAMA), and Datarama, and previously on the Innovation Advisory Board of DBS Bank. 

Maher Nasser has over 36 years of work experience in the United Nations System during which he has worked in Amman, Cairo, Dubai, Gaza, New York and Vienna. He is currently the Director of Outreach in the United Nations Department of Global Communications. Maher leads the Department’s engagement with civil society, academia, sports / football and the creative community, including the advertising industry and was recently appointed as the Commissioner-General of the United Nations at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Kansai, Japan. Maher Nasser is a reluctant runner and is married with three grown children.

Lech Wałęsa (born September 29, 1943, Popowo, near Włocławek, Poland) is a labour activist who helped form and led (1980–90) communist Poland’s first independent trade union, Solidarity. The charismatic leader of millions of Polish workers, he went on to become the president of Poland (1990–95). He received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1983.

Soumitra Dutta has been Dean of Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford since June 2022. Previously he was the founding Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. He is the President of Portulans Institute, Chair of the Board of the Global Business School Network and member of the Global Board of Dassault Systemes.

Professor Dutta is an authority on innovation in the global knowledge economy. He is the co-editor and founder of the Network Readiness Index, published by Portulans Institute and the Global Innovation Index, published by the WIPO.

Professor Dutta received a B. Tech. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi a MS in both business administration and computer science, and a PhD in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley. In 2017 he was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus from his alma mater IIT Delhi.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Princeton University, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard.

He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and a Deputy Under Secretary of State, and won distinguished service awards from all three agencies. His books include The Future of Power,  The Power Game: A Washington Novel, and Do Morals Matter?

He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the American Academy of Diplomacy. In a recent survey of international relations scholars, he was ranked as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and in 2011, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2014, Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun.

Florian Kaefer, PhD, is the publisher of The Place Brand Observer (TPBO), a Swiss-rooted, independent knowledge hub dedicated to the identity, reputation, and performance of cities, regions, and countries worldwide. Founded over a decade ago, TPBO has become a unique resource bridging research and practice in place branding. Its flagship publication is the annual Place Brand Leaders Yearbook, with the 2025 edition set to be presented at the upcoming summit.

Dr. Kaefer holds a PhD in Management Communications from the University of Waikato, New Zealand, where he explored national identity and brand credibility. He also has a master’s in sustainable development (Exeter University, UK), a diploma in journalism, and a bachelor’s in tourism management (Brighton University, UK).

He is the author of An Insider's Guide to Place Branding (Springer, 2021) and Sustainability Leadership in Tourism (Springer, 2022) and the founder of Sustainability Leaders United (Sustainability-Leaders.com)—a testament to his strong focus on the intersection of place branding, soft power, and sustainability.

A champion of economic development through governance reforms, Dr. Samina Zehra’s experience in public policy spans around 30 years. Currently serving as Economic Minister at Pakistan High Commission London, she has been able to generate concrete investment outcomes for the country along with improvement in Pakistan’s image as an investment-friendly country. She has held several influential roles, including Head of UNDP's governance program for Pakistan, Director General National Institute of Management, and Secretary Institutional Reforms Cell at the Prime Minister's Office. She has designed and implemented transformative policies for enabling women’s economic empowerment, skill and technology transfer to least developed areas of Pakistan and helping entrepreneurs in scaling up their businesses. She specializes in international trade and economic diplomacy, with a PhD in International Trade in Services from the University of Southampton and an LLM in International Trade Law from the University of Sussex. She is a regular contributor to national journals on public policy issues, and is working on a book about the future of international services trade.

A leader of transformative initiatives in policy and program development, digital transformation, and gender equality, Dr. Misbah Khatana is a dedicated public servant with over 27 years in Pakistan’s Civil Service. As part of the Customs Service, she spearheaded the Communications and Change Management Departments at the Pakistan Single Window (PSW) and created and established the award-winning “Khadijah Women Entrepreneurship Program,” recognized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the “International Prize for Gender Equality in Trade”. She is a key contributor to the “National Women Entrepreneurship Policy and Action Plan” for Pakistan, including policy development and evaluation and a member of Joint Investment Initiative on Trade and Gender Pakistan for WTO. Alongside running the Khadijah Program, she is designing “Trade Lab,” a digital training portal for international trade and developing a communications department for the Customs Service. An accomplished academic, her research on labor markets earned the United Kingdom Royal Geographic Society’s “Thesis of the Year 2020” Award. She has taught at Cornell University (NY), teaches at the University of Cambridge (UK) and is also a writer and director of theatre and screenplays, videos and documentary films. Misbah holds multiple advanced degrees, including Masters in Public Affairs and Masters in Industrial Labour Relations from Cornell University and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Lourdes Casanova is the Gail and Roberto Cañizares Director of the Emerging Markets Institute and senior lecturer at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. Formerly of the strategy department at INSEAD, she specializes in international business with a focus on Emerging Markets and multinationals from emerging markets.

In 2014 and 2015, Casanova was named as one of the 50 most influential Iberoamerican intellectuals by Esglobal. She is a member of the board of directors of Boyce Thompson Institute.

Casanova is a Fulbright Scholar who holds a PhD from Universidad de Barcelona and MA from the University of Southern California.

• Initiator of JUMP FOR THE PLANET Project – in 2025/26 he will skydive from “the edge of space” (148,000 ft / 45km) to draw the world's attention to the fate of climate refugees,
• Skydiver, tandem-instructor (3,000+jumps) – in December 2014, he completed the highest skydive jump in Europe (over 36,000 ft) after being raised to the stratosphere on a hot air balloon.
• On June 21, 2017, he jumped 50 times in one day. Each jump was dedicated to a person with particular problem (cancer, brain tumor, etc.). By this Project he collected over 50.000 EUR for charity purposes, for which he received the award of CHARITY HERO). A year later, he completed 100 jumps in 9 hours, raising $150.000 to finance the purchase of specialized wheelchairs for handicapped children in need of them.
• Advisory Board Member of THE CENTER FOR PLANETARY IDENTITY.
• Specialist in diagnosing teams and leadership. Specialist for Crisis Intervention. Works in Poland and New Zealand (over 1 year) in TEAM BUILDING projects.
• Motivational speaker and experienced coach. Psychologist, consultant.
• Author of the book entitled “The story of a thousand fears”.
• Conducts training courses taking into account the multicultural aspects (e.g. for Officers of the NATO Multinational Corps – 2011).
• (1995-2012) Mountain Rescuer (instructor of mountain rescue). Ski instructor. Instructor during training of the Polish Military, Police and Special Forces. Certified qualified first aid rescuer.
• Completed courses in the scope of critical intervention, psychological support in critical situations as well as psychological and social aid in mass traumatic events.
• At the request of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration, he provided psychological aid to refugees from Lebanon in July 2006.
• Author of publications on health psychology and issues related to the human factor in mountain accidents.
• For more than a dozen years invited as an expert to the main television stations.

Before 2009

• Member of a task force for psychological support of rescue services and organizations of the Department of Critical Management and Defensive Matters of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration. Member of the Polish Association of Research on Traumatic Stress.
• Psychologist of the Polish Medical Mission. Vice President of the Management Board of the Association of Critical Intervention.

Dr. Ott Velsberg holds a PhD in Informatics from Umea University, where his research has concentrated on the Internet of Things and data-driven decision-making within the public sector. He assumed the role of Estonia's Chief Data Officer in 2018, overseeing the development and implementation of the nation's data policy. He serves as a key figure, leading policies on digital innovation and data utilization.

As the Estonia’s Chief Data Officer, Velsberg has played a pivotal role in advancing the nations digital transformation strategy. His visionary leadership and expertise have revolutionized the country’s operations, leveraging AI and analytics for promising results.

One example is the machine learning project, Burokratt, which reimagines bureaucratic processes with automated workflows, intelligent decision-making systems, and innovative governance models. Burokratt showcases Estonia's commitment to applying technology-driven approaches to enrich its citizens' lives, and establish more streamlined communication with its policy makers.

Velsberg has also championed projects on open data, AI, and innovation, advocating for evidence-based policies and fostering breakthroughs across multiple sectors.

With his deep understanding of technology and commitment to leveraging data for societal benefit, Ott Velsberg remains at the forefront of digital revolution, earning a well-deserved reputation in public service and digital innovation.

David is the Chairman and CEO of Brand Finance Plc – the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance which is celebrating 25 years in business this year.

David represented the British Standards Institution in the working parties responsible for crafting international industry standards: ISO 10668 on Brand Valuation in 2010 and ISO 20671 on Brand Evaluation in 2019.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles on brand valuation, published in numerous marketing and finance newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He is a Fellow of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has a practising certificate with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).